A Lesson in Shakespeare
by ShinyTogeticFTW
Summary: There is a video on YouTube that can be found easily by searching for Catherine Tate David Tennant Comic Relief. It was made for Red Nose Day and stars the actors who play the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble. This fic is the result of my sister, Mysteryfan17, suggesting that it actually happened in the canonicity of Doctor Who. I hope you enjoy it!


Double English. Well, that shouldn't be a problem; he was fluent in English, after all. He was fluent in every Earth language, for that matter. How hard could it be?

The name he had chosen this time was a new one: Mr. Theodore Logan – 'Mr.,' not 'Dr.' That was slightly odd, but he had worked with odder circumstances.

He entered the classroom with a (secretly modified) briefcase in hand and his sonic screwdriver in the inside pocket of his new (solid brown rather than pinstriped) suit jacket. The alien threat he was here to investigate was supposed to be nocturnal, so there shouldn't be any trouble until after hours, but he still felt better having his trusty tool within easy reach. Taking his place behind the large desk at the front of the room, he looked around the class briefly before digging out a book from the depths of his dimensionally-transcendent briefcase. He counted ten students, most sporting bored looks, though they all gave him their attention as soon as he walked in. That was promising, at least.

"Morning!" he said in greeting.

"Alright..." was the general response. Not what he was expecting.

"As I'm sure you're aware, my name is Mr. Logan," he said, solidifying the untested identity in his mind as he spoke, "I'm your new English teacher, nice to meet you all." The students seemed largely unimpressed thus far. "I hope you're all ready to get to grips with some Elizabethan literature!" He was certain he could make learning interesting for this small group of humans, particularly since he had actually _met_ the very person he would be teaching about not long ago (though, admittedly, he couldn't exactly tell _them_ that). He raised the book in his hand before flipping through it as he instructed, "Let's all turn to page 53 in our poetry textbooks – I think we'll dive straight in with the Bard himself."

One of the students in the back of the class spoke up then. "Sir?"

"Yeah?" He looked steadily at her, making eye contact with the ginger girl and trying not to feel a twinge of jealousy.

"Are you English, sir?" she asked.

What a question! He wasn't from this _planet_ let alone this _country_, but under the alias of Mr. Logan he was from Scotland. Remaining in character, he replied simply, "No, I'm Scottish," before looking down at the page and preparing to read aloud.

"So you ain't English, then?" she drawled.

He looked up at her again. Hadn't he just answered that he wasn't from England? The fact remained, however, that Scotland _was_ part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; hence, as Mr. Logan, he could be called British the same as someone from England. Maybe that was the point she was going for? "No, I'm British," he clarified.

"So you ain't English, then?" she repeated. Her voice was irritatingly monotonous, even to his ears; he could hear every subtle nuance of a person's speech, naturally, but this girl was maintaining a level tone throughout and already it was beginning to grate.

"No, I'm not, but as you can see... I do speak English." As soon as he'd said that he silently chastised himself; 'see'? Really? He could've said that she could 'hear' or 'tell' or even 'discern' that his speech was English, but instead he implied she could 'see' it. How stupid!

"But I can't understand what you're saying, sir." The student sitting slouched beside her at the same table shook her head as though in agreement to what her classmate said.

He took note of the fact that both of these girls had their arms crossed, as though they'd rather be anywhere else. They were testing him, he realized (though he _did_ do quick a mental check anyway, just to be on the safe side: he made sure that the translation circuit in his mind was inactive and confirmed that he hadn't accidentally been speaking a foreign language – that would have been embarrassing, particularly if it was Judoon or some other non-terrestrial tongue! But no, it all checked out – every single word that had come out of his mouth since he'd landed here this morning was perfect twenty-first century Earth English tinged with a deep Scottish accent that he was certain Rose would have found sexy.) The corner of his mouth crooked up in a half-smile at this thought before he said matter-of-factly, "Well, clearly you can."

"Sorry, are you talking Scottish now?" she asked, successfully injecting a note of uncertainty into her voice so that, if she weren't being so blatantly transparent, he would've almost been fooled into thinking she really couldn't tell.

"No, I'm talking English." He managed to stop himself rolling his eyes with immense difficulty. This was getting old faster that he was!

"Right. Don't sound like it!" she insisted, shaking her head with a confused look on her face.

"Okay, whatever you want." He walked around to stand between the teacher's desk and the rest of the class. "Now! Let's get on with Shakespeare."

"I don't think you're qualified to teach us English!" the ginger girl burst out.

Looking exasperatedly at her as he half-leaned half-sat on the edge of his desk he intoned, "I am perfectly qualified to teach English."

"I don't think you are, though," she insisted.

"You don't have to _be_ English to teach it," he informed her sternly. She was already working on his last nerve and the class had barely started.

"Right, have we got double English or double Scottish?"

Rassilon, what was with this girl?! She was trying his ample patience so much that he wanted to run his hands through his hair in exasperation! (The problem with that was that, for this ruse, his hair was immaculately straight; despite how much he preferred the spiky look, the last thing he wanted to do was mess up his cover before he had even gotten any sleuthing done.) Suddenly, he was reminded of some advice that a fellow faculty member had given him when he'd applied for this job: _Watch out for Lauren Cooper, if she's in your class; she'll chew you up and spit you out before the day's done and you won't even know what hit you!_ Looking at her shrewdly he asked, "Is your name Lauren Cooper, by any chance?"

"Yeah," she replied.

"Mm." That settled it. He'd thought she looked familiar, but now he was certain: she was most definitely related to that Donna Noble woman that had appeared in his TARDIS in her wedding dress. This girl must have inherited her sass as well as her looks from – judging by the year (and the fact that her last name was different) – her maternal grandmother.

"Why?" she asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Your reputation precedes you," he told her plainly, then turned back to the poetry book still in his hand.

"Innit though?!" she exclaimed. This girl was truly impossible!

Well, it wasn't like he didn't know how best to deal with such an annoyance: ignore it. "So, Shakespeare's sonnets!"

"Sir?" Lauren again.

"A sonnet is a poem..." he continued, undeterred.

"Sir?" She still wasn't giving up.

"...written in 14 lines..." Neither was he.

"Sir?" She was persistent, he'd give her that.

"...the last two of which..." He still wouldn't acknowledge her, though.

"Sir?" It was like listening to a broken record.

"...must form..." On second thought...

"Sir?" ...it was worse than a broken record.

"...a rhyming couplet." He'd never be able to get anywhere if she didn't stop interrupting.

"Sir?"

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. "Yes, Lauren?"

"Can I _aks_ you a question?" It struck him that the way she was enunciating the word 'ask' was a blatantly stereotypical mispronunciation.

"Not just now."

"Can I _aks_ you a question, though?"

Omega, not this again! "Just wait."

"But can I just _aks_ you a question? I only want to _aks_ you a question. Can't I _aks_ you a question? I'm just _aks_ing you a question. Can't I _aksk_ you a question~?" she lilted, full of fake innocence and the slightest undertone of smugness.

He waited a short while to make sure she was done before asking, "What is it?"

She stared him right in the eye with a perfectly straight face and said, "Are you the Doctor?"

His hearts stuttered. _What?_ Was she serious? How could she–? Oh, that clinched it; she was definitely related to (and had heard stories about him from) Donna Noble. He made sure to keep breathing evenly at an approximate human respiratory rate and blinked whenever she did, morphing his features into a blank look of confusion. "Doctor who?" he asked, then cursed himself in his head in Gallifreyan.

"Innit though?!" she shouted, clapping her hands and then pointing him; the girl sitting with her pointed at him as well, and they both laughed aloud as though at some shared joke. In his peripheral vision, he saw some of the other students laughing as well.

"I dunno what you're talking about," he said over the cacophony.

"You look like Doctor Who, though!" she shouted, still jubilant.

"I'm not Doctor Who, I'm your English teacher!" he loudly insisted.

"I don't think you are, though!"

"Lauren..."

"I think you're a 945-year-old Time Lord!"

"Listen..." he interrupted, genuinely confused now; where did she get 945 from? He was nearer 1100 in all honestly, though he had claimed 900 to Rose back in... 2005... Oh. And right now he was in the year 2050. How did she...?

"Did you just pitch up from Mars?" she suggested mockingly.

"Don't be ridiculous," he scoffed; he hadn't been on Mars since he was all ears and leather, and after what he experienced there he wasn't sure visiting it again would be very fun.

"You know your house, right?"

"What?" What was she going on about now?

"You know your house?"

"Yeah?"

"Is it bigger on the inside?"

Now this was going way too far. "Be quiet!" Whether or not she was just poking fun at him, he really didn't want all this information getting out; even if there wasn't a dormant alien entity sleeping in the walls of the school, it was hardly her business – or anyone else's, for that matter!

"Have you parked the TARDIS on a meter?"

Okay, that one _was_ kinda funny. He actually had to try to not laugh at the thought. Truthfully, knowing his old girl, if the chameleon circuit wasn't broken she probably _would_ have turned into a car when he landed her outside; and, knowing that, he probably would've parked on the street instead of in the back alley as he did. Regaining his composure he said, "Can we please get back to Shakespeare?"

Lauren sat back, arms crossed, looking sullen but defeated.

"Thank you! So..."

"Do you fancy Billie Piper, sir?"

That was the final straw! "Right," he said, throwing the poetry textbook he had been holding open to page 53 down on his desk before he rose to his feet with his arms akimbo. A moment later it hit him: singer/actress Billie Piper bore a striking resemblance to Rose Tyler. He was sure his face must've been incredibly dour by this point, but he was beyond caring. "You are the most insolent child I have ever had the misfortune to teach," he informed Lauren, the fact that he wasn't primarily a teacher notwithstanding.

"Thank you," she replied with a nod, as though that was the highest compliment she had ever received.

Well, he was about to inform her that he was not amused. "You are pointless, repetitious, and _extremely_ dull."

"Bit like Shakespeare," she said offhandedly. As if that comment wasn't bad enough on its own, then she had the gall to look at him as though challenging him to contradict her statement!

"You're not even worthy to mention his name." He spoke steadily at first, but then he lost it, pointing furiously at her and berating her with all the force of the Oncoming Storm. "William Shakes– _William Shakespeare_ was a _genius_. You, _little madam_, are _definitely_ _not_. Now just _sit there_, keep your _mouth shut_, or I will fail you in this whole module _right now_."

She didn't say anything to that, but she did suck her teeth noisily – he had heard that sound already a couple of times emanating from the vicinity of that corner of the classroom; now he knew it was her doing it he was even more seriously considering failing her. That's when she leaned forward and snarked, "Amest I bovver-ed?" She then cocked her head self-satisfactorily and leaned back in her seat again.

He tilted his head confusedly as he worked to decipher what she had just said. Unable to make heads or tails of it on his own, he begrudgingly re-enabled the translation circuit (which he had as recently as that morning assured his TARDIS he didn't need) in his mind and said, "What?"

"Amest I bovv(th)er-ed, forsooth?"

'Forsooth'? "Lauren..." Her use of such an archaic term led him to conclude that she was satirizing the Old English dialect. (_So much for needing that translation circuit after all,_ he thought, disabling it once more.)

"Looketh at my face!" she cried, pointing indicatively at herself.

"I don't..." he began, but she forestalled him by shaking her head and gesturing again at her visage.

"Looketh at my face!"

"Stop it."

"Ist this a bovver-ed face thou seest before thee?"

"Right, I'm calling your parents." Maybe someone at her home could convince her to stop being such a nuisance... and perhaps he could even talk to Donna again? That would be nice; he was honestly quite sad that she'd turned down his offer to come with him.

"Are you disrespecting the house of Cooper?" she shouted, acting scandalized.

He opened his mouth to say something about her having reverted back to normal speech, then closed it again. This girl really was impossible!

"Art thou calling my mother a pox-ridden wench?" She pointed threateningly at him.

"No," he replied. That certainly didn't last long.

"Art thou calling my father a goodly rotten apple?"

"Lauren..."

"But he ain't even a goodly rotten apple," she declared.

"Listen to me..."

"But he ain't even a goodly rotten apple, though," she insisted indignantly.

"That's enough."

"Face-eth!" She was pointing at her own face again.

"Lauren..."

"Bovver-ed?"

"Lauren!"

"Looketh!"

"Enough!"

"Looketh!"

"Stop!"

"My liege!"

"That's it!"

"My liege!"

"Enough!"

"My liege!"

"Stop!"

"My liege!"

"Shush!"

"Bovver-ed!"

"Enough!"

"Face-eth!"

"No more!"

"Bovver-ed!"

"That's it!"

"You take the high road and I'll take the low road."

Wait, _what?_ His jaw dropped. Now she was making fun of his assumed heritage?

"I ain't even bovvered. I ain't even bovvered! Look! Face! Bovvered!" She was lilting again. Would this never end? "Bovver-ed, face, bovver-ed, I ain't even bovver-ed, my liege, I be not bovver-ed, forsooth, I be not bovver-ed, face, bovvered, I ain't even bovvered. Face, bovvered, Shakespeare, sonnets, I ain't even bovvered..."

That was it. He was giving up.

"My mistress' eyes are nuffin' like the sun / Coral is far more red than her lips red /"

...No way.

"If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun / If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head /"

That's... not possible...

"I have seen roses damask, red and white / But no such roses see I in her cheeks /"

How...?

"And in some perfumes is there more delight / Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks /"

He couldn't even think at this point, he was so awed by this sudden display of fervor from what he originally mistook for an uneducated whelp.

"I love to hear her speak yet well I know / That music have a far more pleasing sound /"

He blinked. Some of the shock was finally wearing off.

"I grant I never saw a goddess go / My mistress when she walks treads on the ground /"

Maybe her ire was a result of lacking the proper outlet for her intelligence?

"And yet, by Heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belies with false compare."

Perhaps he'd speak to the headmaster later and see what could be done about placing Miss Cooper in a higher-level class.

After finishing her recitation of the sonnet, however, Lauren's attitude reared its ugly head once more: she slammed her hands on the table in front of her and, glaring angrily at him, screamed, "Bite me, alien boy!" before leaning back with a huff.

Well. Clearly his intended charity would be misplaced in her; it would be as pearls before swine to move her to a more learned class! No, what she needed was a reality check and a heavy dose of good old-fashioned _discipline_.

He started to turn nonchalantly away from her before he decided that, yeah, she had this coming. Reaching into his pocket, he whipped out his sonic screwdriver (which was primed to deal with the entity haunting the school building at night) and pointed it at her. The tip lit up a bright blue when he pressed the button, the gorgeous whirring sound filling up the room as Lauren Cooper was transformed into a plastic figurine of a familiar (to him, anyway) blonde-haired girl. "That's better." Her seatmate stared at the doll in shock, slackjawed, and he was a little afraid to see the other students' reactions; he stood by his descision, however, and sniffed unconcernedly as he returned the sonic to his pocket and walked back to his desk. "A _Rose_ by any other name would smell as sweet!" he declared with a grin, opening the poetry textbook again.

Much to his dismay, however, he heard Lauren's high-pitched squeak of, "I still ain't bovvered!"


End file.
